Bills

[susandennis]

My brother is four years younger than I am. He was born way before in utero gender reveals. Had he been a girl, his name would have been Patricia.

Something flipped in my brain this morning while I was swimming and I got to thinking... what would we have called him? Patty, Patsy, Tricia? So funny to think about now.

Patricia turned out to be William. I remember being specifically and sternly admonished that the only appropriate appellation was Bill. Not William. Not Bill.Not Billy. Not Will or Willy.

We mostly called him Little Baby Bill but sometimes Boom Boom (since that's what he said a lot).

My father's name was William and his father's name was William. My father's only sister was named was Karolene (sounds like gasolene), but she married a William and their only child was a boy named... William.

My Mom's father was named William. My Mom's brother (who was killed in wwII before he had kids) was William.

My brother named only one of his sons William but he goes by Alex.

I think we may well be at the end of the Williams since my nephews only had girls.

But do not get me started on their attraction to and inter mingling with Jennifers.

Often, while I'm swimming, I think up menus or grocery lists or how to accomplish various projects I'm interested in.

But some days, I just take a silly thought and grind it down til it goes awy.

Comments

[roasted_beets]

Did they ever tell you what your name would have been if you were a boy? I would have been Mark and my younger brother Phyllis instead of Douglas. When I would especially like to needle him I would call him Phyllis. He hated it. lol

[susandennis]

If I had been a boy, my brother would have had to pick an entirely new name as I would be already using his.

The girl name was up for grabs. Either Linda or Susan. They had a dog named Linda who was very old and they assumed she would die before I was born. She didn't so I was named Susan.

[roasted_beets]

Yeah, my family didn't do much of that. We all have our own names. One of my nephews has my father's first name as his middle name. We all have middle names. :)

[alefy]

I knew a Patricia; and she goes by Trish. :)

Also, my father-in-law is a William (goes by Bill), though it is not his first name (it's his middle name!). His first name is Frank, which was his father's name too, and his grandfather's.

I am so thankful he did not name his son Frank. I cannot imagine Rory as Frank...!

[jayregee]

I am sorry to butt into your journal since I am not a friend. I just wanted to say my Aunt Pauline was gonna to be named Patricia too. My Grandma forgot the name after hard labor. My Granpa named her Pauline. The rumor is Pauline was a girlfriend of his. He wasn't exactly faithful.

[susandennis]

please do butt in any time - especially with a fun story like that!

[jayregee]

Thanks for reading and not getting aggravated.

[days_unfolding]

If I had been a boy, I would have been named George. I'm surprised that my mom didn't name me Georgina.

[zoefruitcake]

Do you know what your name would have been if you had been a boy?
My brother would have been Lucy if he'd been a girl but for a boy my mother wanted Luke and my father wanted Leo so they compromised on Matthew!

[susandennis]

Oh I absolutely would have gotten the name my brother did. Maybe then they would have named him Patricia after all! ha

[mollywheezy]

It's a good thing I was a girl, because my parents didn't have a boy's name picked out!

I know a William who goes by Bill and his oldest son is a William who they call Liam.

[desdemonaspace]

Re: Boom Boom - We had a "Willy Lump Lump" in our family. Also known as Billy Bumps, because he'd bang his head on the floor.

[susandennis]

hahha actually as I recall, BoomBoom's name derived in part from some head banging as well!

[maju]

There aren't all that many people in S's family but two of them are named Jonathan and two or three are either Carl or Charles. There are many people in my family and only a small number of duplicate names.

[susandennis]

That's funny. If I were mathier, the stats on name duplication might be fun. But I'm not so based on your evidence, I'm going with the smaller families=fewer names situation!

[liminaltime]

My parents didn't know what they were having and my boy name would have been William (Bill). My dad is a William but goes by a nickname of his middle name.